Random stimulation

So, it's late, it's been a long weekend (I worked a decent portion of it), and I'm tired. But, I'm also hyper.

I'm what is clinically called "ADHD"; I don't necessarily think of it as a "disorder", but that's what it's called. Anyway, most people don't generally notice because I'm pretty much *always* sipping a soda (usually zero-cal) and that takes the "edge" off; see, stimulants actually act contrary to how you'd expect in many people with ADHD, and in my case, they actually help me focus. It has to do with activation thresholds and such.

When I'm at home, I tend to drink water or ginger ale, neither of which has caffeine. No caffeine for a day and I start to get hyper/distractable. Of course, no caffeine for a week and the ASD-type symptoms start coming out; I don't get grumpy, per se, at least not after the first few days. I do, however, get far less social (hard to believe, I know) and far more precise.

One time I got to that stage when a few years ago when I was kicking off my first big diet: I didn't drink anything but water or juices for a month. I felt great and got a lot done, but I was only sleeping about 4 hours a night and my coworkers later told me they wanted to kill me. Apparently, in my "normal" state, my productivity skyrockets and my empathy drops below zero.

So anyway, on Sundays, by the end of the day, I'm usually starting to feel it. Sometimes, it's not so bad. Sometimes it's really bad. Tonight, it's moderate. To counteract it enough to get to bed, I'm sipping a cup of Kona coffee. Which is very weird to most people - I'm drinking a cup of coffee to help me sleep rather than keep me awake. My mom's the same way, though.

Just a random note for the night. Hope everyone had a good weekend, and has a good week.

1 comments:

TwoLives said...

It's been 5 weeks since you've posted on this blog Austin. I hope you're so busy enjoying your new place that you don't have time to post!

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